The door opened by itself, swinging free and revealing humid air and the dim glow of the inset lights above the Jacuzzi.
John was facing her behind the glass enclosure, the water rushing down his chest and his six-pack and his thighs. His cock sprang up into a massive erection the moment her eyes met his, but he didn't move and he didn't look glad to see her.
In fact, his upper lip curled in a snarl, and that wasn't the worst of it. His emotional grid was completely closed off to her. He was blocking her and she wasn't even sure he was aware of doing it: She couldn't get a bead on anything that she had always sensed so clearly before.
Xhex lifted up her right hand and spelled out awkwardly: I came back.
His brow twitched. Then he signed much more smoothly and quickly: With intel for Wrath and the Brothers, right. Feel like a hero? Congratulations.
He shut off the water, stepped out, and leaned for a towel. He didn't cover himself, but dried off, and it was hard not to notice that with each move and arch, his erection bobbed.
She never thought she'd curse her peripheral vision.
"I haven't talked with anyone," she said.
This left him pausing with the towel stretched across his back, one arm angled up, the other down. Naturally, the pose popped his pecs and pulled the muscles that ran over his hip bones out in stark relief.
He snapped the towel free and draped it over his shoulders. Leaving it to hang, he signed, Why did you come here?
"I wanted to see you." The ache in her voice made her wish she'd used ASL.
Why.
"I was worried--"
You want to see how I'm hanging together? You want to know what it was like to spend the past seven hours wondering if you were dead or--
"John--"
He ripped the towel free and snapped the end in midair to shut her up. You want to know how I handled the idea that you were dead, fighting alone, or worse, back where you'd been? Your symphath side need a little diversion for kicks and giggles?
"God, no--"
You sure about that? You're not wearing your cilices. Maybe you're feeding that hunger, coming back here--
Xhex wheeled around for the door, her emotions too much for her to handle, the guilt and the sadness choking her.
John caught her arm and they ended up against the wall, his body holding hers in place while he signed up close to their faces.
Hell no, you do not get to run. After what you put me through, you do not get to run the fuck out of here just because you can't deal with shit you created. I couldn't run from today. I had to stay caged here and you can damn well return the favor. Her eyes wanted to focus elsewhere, but then she couldn't track what he was saying with his hands. You want to know how I am? Fucking resolved, that's how I am. You and I are turning a corner tonight. You say you have a right to go after Lash? I do, too.
That locker room, in the shower, she thought. The betrayal that she didn't know the details of, but that she sensed had everything to do with what had happened to John when he'd been young, and alone, and defenseless.
Here's the deal and it's nonnegotiable. We work together to find him and get him and kill him. We work as a team, which means where one of us is, the other goes. And at the end, whoever takes him to ground gets the honors. That's where we stand.
Xhex exhaled with relief, instantly knowing it was the right answer. She hadn't liked how it felt being at that farmhouse without him. It had seemed wrong.
"Deal," she said.
His face didn't register surprise or satisfaction--which told her whatever he'd planned if she said no must have been a doozy.
Except then she learned why he was so calm.
After it's over, we go our separate ways. We're done.
The blood drained out of her head and abruptly, her hands and feet went numb. Which was such bullshit. What he was proposing was the best arrangement and the best outcome: two fighters working together and once their goal was accomplished, there was no reason to retain any tie between them.
Matter of fact, this was precisely what she'd seen of the future when she'd first come out of that nightmare with Lash. Get him good and dead. Then end this fiasco of life.
Trouble was . . . her plans that had been so clear were foggy now, the path that she had set with her head the instant she got free obscured by things that had nothing to do with what was in her skull and everything to do with the male who was naked against her.
"Okay," she said hoarsely. "All right."
Now that caused a reaction in him. His body relaxed against hers and he planted his hands on the wall on either side of her head. As their eyes met, her body roared with a blast of heat.
Man, desperation was gasoline to a match for her when it came to John Matthew--and given the way he subtly rolled his hips against her, he felt the same way.
Xhex reached up and clamped a hold on the side of his neck. She wasn't gentle and neither was he as she pulled him down to her mouth, their lips crushing together, their tongues not so much meeting as dueling. When she suddenly heard a tearing sound, she realized he'd grabbed both sides of her muscle shirt and ripped it in half down the front--